As well as doing tapes for my own label – POST/POP – some of you know I also often make tapes for the bigger labels. If you’ve bought a tape from a big band in the chart, it’s almost certain it’s gone through this little label. I am very selective about the bands I do tapes for though and even more selective about the bands I allow my logo on (The POST/POP wolf is a mark of quality, like lions on eggs! Like lions on eggs!).

Step forward ROYAL BLOOD. One of the most successful British bands of recent years, whose self-titled debut album reached Number one a few years ago are back with their follow up record ‘How Did We Get So Dark’.

This release was always going to be a big deal, so I wanted to do something extra special. Something I haven’t done before. Everyone loved the GOLD tapes I did for GUNSHIP (Waiting for that follow up guys!) so I’d always wanted to do Chrome/Mirrored cassettes. I chose Royal Blood to be the band that get these babies and just look at them… Absolutely beautiful!

I’m not sure any photos or videos can do them the justice of holding it in your hands and watching it catch the light in the most satisfying way. It also sounds superb – recorded in real time for the best quality – and to perfectly compliment that amazing raw sound Royal Blood have been so successful with.

As you can imagine, these chrome tapes are very very limited edition and due to how big this band is, will disappear very quickly. The album was released on June 16th and promptly went straight in at number 1 in the UK album charts! This is a first for POST/POP but there have been some close calls. In the next week I will be exploring some of the other tapes that POST/POP has done for Major labels that may have passed you by.

In 2012, Ariel Pink and R. Stevie Moore released an incredible collaboration which was a culmination of years of friendship and mutual admiration. While Ariel is known as a cassette tape aficionado, R. Stevie Moore is legit the Godfather of DIY Taping. I’ve already pitched my tent in the swamps of love for RSM when I released ‘Teenage Spectacular’ (for my money, the best RSM record) on tape last year, but wanted to tackle something else. After RSM gave me the go ahead to release another album, I cast my eye – greedily – over RSM’s back catalogue and of course the collaboration with Ariel caught my eye.

This was a 63 track album of catchy-weirdness, propagated by stabs of unrequited love, slices of life and then some sublime jams. RSM asked Ariel and when I got the thumbs up I realised that nobody had ever put out a cassette with 63 tracks on. Yes, those rave tapes from the 90s that came in a gatefold clamshell package with gawdy illustrations of girls in croptops had a hundred “songs”, but this was wildly different. “I look forward to seeing how you split this” came the daunting words from RSM and it was mostly the same experience as making a mixtape for someone you care about. You make sure that each side is roughly the same length, with the preceding side being slightly longer so there is no gap at the end, you carefully label the j-card so its legible, and then you give it a big kiss and spin around 3 times, you know, for luck.

So here I present to you the FULL version of Ku Klux Glam in all its glory for the first time ever. If you’re buying from the US, I’d recommend you buy straight from RSM on his bandcamp. It will be cheaper for you as shipping is a killer. If you’re buying from the UK then I’m your man. If you hate the internet, go into a Rough Trade store and pick it up from their tape racks! By nature, this is limited edition so be fast or be disappointed!

On Sunday 2nd of October, Sam Duckworth aka Recreations aka Get Cape, Wear Cape Fly, played a triumphant hometown gig at the end of Southend Pier. I would have been in attendance anyway as Sam was playing ‘Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager’ – simply one of the greatest British albums of the 21st century – but I was there with an ulterior motive. This magical gig was being recorded for posterity and then released less than a week later for Cassette Store Day!

“But Jed, how is it possible that you can record a gig on a Sunday night, mix it for tape, dub it, sort the artwork, have it delivered and be ready for Cassette Store Day which *checks watch* is only 5 days later?” I hear you ask. Well, that’s the beauty of the format and why so many labels and bands have turned to it in the last few years. The viability of the format is closely linked to its ability to capture a moment and then share that moment very quickly after. If we tried to do this on vinyl, we may, at a push, have something ready for XMAS. Cassettes bring us closer to the artist, not only by being able to experience their intention faster, but by giving you something tangible to hold and feel and keep. This was an experiment which proved in certain circumstances, tapes are the only way to go.

There is no digital download for this EP as I want to keep it solely cassette only as Sam is releasing a full Live album some time next year with all the songs on it. It’s definitely worth getting though as it includes some choice banter between songs from Sam, where he chides his parents for wearing “all of the merch” he has ever produced!

The tape was launched on Cassette Store Day at Jen Long’s (who created the day itself) event at Lion Coffee and Records in London, where Sam played all the songs from the tape and a few other classics. It was ace! Below is Sam, Jen and I after a solid week of planning this tape, from gig to CSD and it was more than worth the effort we put in!

Recreations is currently on tour in the following places and I urge you to go check him out! I know POST/POP sells a lot of tapes in Germany, so I’m looking at you guys to go and support this tour. Turn up, sing loud and buy his merch!

When I started this little label, I had two firm ideas what I wanted to achieve with it. 1: Release bands that I love. 2: Release those bands on the format I love, tapes. As long as I stick to those rules I know magical things can happen, because when has blindly doing something for love without fear of consequence ever got anyone into trouble? Never right? So here I am, with my 50th release and its a goddamn monster. It’s a re-release of what’s considered one of the best albums by THE GODFATHER OF CASSETTES himself, R. STEVIE MOORE… 1987’s‘TEENAGE SPECTACULAR’!

RSM is a true inspiration and a stone cold legend in both music and cassette culture; releasing over 400 albums on myriad formats, since 1968, establishing the CASSETTE CLUB (a proto-POST/POP!) releasing his albums via mail order, directly to fans (which included massive RSM fan, Ariel Pink) and furthering the appeal of tapes to many.

The intimacy of the artist, recording an album at home, duplicating it onto a tape, putting that into an envelope and sending it to a fan is as rare as a decent sounding mp3. That connection with the artist adds so many more layers to the music when you are holding a tangible rectangle of hard work and love in your adoring hands. The xmas-like act of opening the case, your first touch of the plastic as you turn the tape to side A, the placing of the tape into a Walkman, the sound of the closing of the door, the click when you press play, the slight hiss as you wait a second for the first song to start, the pulling out of the j-card and unfurling with both sweaty hands, your eyes darting for information across the j-card as you listen to the music, making connections between words and sounds and images and feelings… this is why tapes will never die. This is why bands and artists will always want to emulate something that RSM has been doing since the 60s. If you want to make your music mean something to fans – besides disposable chewing gum pop – you give them all those feelings above, with the knowledge that a true music fan will appreciate that you went to the effort.

I am very happy that POST/POP has a little part to play in the epic saga that is the musical career of one of the most influential and important musicians in alt-music. All hail R. Stevie Moore!

You can buy ‘Teenage Spectacular’ on cassette from Friday, August 26th 2016 by clicking on this sentence!

If you want to buy the digital, please go to RSM’s bandcamp and buy it from there, where you can find all of his albums at reasonable prices. I hope to release more tapes with RSM, so if you’re a fan and never seen POST/POP before, keep checking back or sign up to the mailing list over there on the right.

If POST/POP was a 90s film noir, Kenny Lee would be Keyser Soze. While this label has been slowly gaining traction, scoring awesome band after awesome band, Kenny Lee has been watching from the shadows, quietly engineering things with whispers and half-gestures. You liked all the HETTIE stuff we’ve put out? All produced by Kenny Lee. You liked the Apple Eyes tape? Kenny was in that band! You definitely loved the Model village albums we put out… yes Kenny is in that band too. You see, without you knowing it, Kenny Lee has been in your life for longer than you realise, so it’s about smegging time he put out his own album… and what an album it is! Featuring all of your favourite POST/POP artists such as HETTIE, Model Village, No Cars (Yes, No Cars is on this album! I know, I’m excited too!) + members of Wolventrix (not released anything on POST/POP yet weirdly!) and a few other surprise cameos.

‘The Constant’ (an obvious nod to the greatest episode of LOST, nay the greatest episode of TV ever) is essentially the soundtrack to your next decade. Chockablock full of pop songs you had only dreamt about, at times 80s while others firmly futuristic. It’s like if someone made a musical of that time you were truly happy, but had nobody around to share that happiness with and then suddenly you do. The culmination of years of graft in myriad bands, Kenny has finally written his opus, and for those that have kept an eye on his output since dot, it’s everything you never knew you wanted.

By now, if you’ve listened to any of the album, you will have already bought it. POST/POP is around to bring you new music on the format you love, and if you don’t like this then there is no point in anything. It’s like a best of POST/POP before I actually do one (soon!), so get it now using the link below or click on the shop link to the right!BUY THE CONSTANT BY KENNY LEE ON CASSETTE NOW

oh and I directed the Hall & Oates inspired music video for ‘System Offline’ ft. Matthew Walker from APPLE EYES!

One of the main reasons why I started POST/POP was to bring new music to people, specifically on the format I love. The ‘Adventures in Home Taping’ series is the distillation of that. Each tape has been a snapshot of cassette culture at that time, perfectly chronicling the almost indistinguishable move from a more “punk” aesthetic to a “pop” one. I believe this has occurred due to the format reaching popularity among people other than those that typically grasp lost media to their chests and fly the flag for DIY. Cassettes have become an acceptable, viable and beautiful way to showcase your music, regardless of genre.

The r/cassetteculture subreddit, run by the mysterious Neztok, has been a haven for people and bands to find out more about the rise of cassette culture and also the history of it. Most people think there was a big gap between when the last big labels produced tapes and this new emergence/revival of tapes. There are some of us who never stopped loving/living/making tapes, even if it was just for those close to us, or those we want to be close to us. ‘Adventures in Home Taping’ is a way of recording what is happening now, to show the world that there are so many great bands who enjoy this format and love hearing their hard work played through it.

I’m proud to have started this compilation series and will continue to do so until Trump stops me taking American bands to make a UK label great. These are the 20 bands in question. Some you may know, some you will want to know more about. Let me know which ones you like the best!BUY ADVENTURES IN HOME TAPING 4 HERE (OR CLICK ON HETTIE ON THE RIGHT)

If you are in a band and want a label to release you on tape (you’re welcome to email me, but its best to cast your net wide!) then visit r/cassetteculture now!

As I’ve written before, Norwich is the new Manchester (which itself is the new Glasgow, which in turn is the new London). Its primary export right now seems to be bands that I can’t help falling in love with and I’m usually not so fickle with my heart, especially when it comes to music. Is it because I’ve lived in London all of my life and have become jaded with the identikit bands that circulate the city’s venues like clones programmed to think their individuals. I’m sent demos evry day from bands who are trying way too hard to be the XX (and just as annoying) when all I really need to get me going is something original. Something with its roots not firmly planted in the capital’s circle-jerk of self-congratulating, band-clone machine. Norwich’s ability to create bands like Mega Emotion, Treasureseason and Let’s Eat Grandma while here in London we’ve created Rita Ora means I will always side with our friends in the East.

PEACH CLUB is my latest fascination. Katie Gilbert, Amanda MacKinnon, Rebecca Wren and Charlie Hart are not the Riot Grrrls you want, but they are the Riot Grrls that you NEED. Now I’ve never claimed to be the poster child for Feminist Punk (yet) but I know passion and talent and fire when I hear it. It’s the sound of rebellion, channelled through 4 girls who on the surface might look like butter-wouldn’t-melt, but in reality, butter would become a gaseous form and dissipate into the eyes of every person who dared to cross them. Don’t discount this as preachy feminism, as that’s not what this is at all. It’s a celebration of being young with opinions and the anger at all that has come before, with the veiled promise to smash down the walls that threaten to barricade them in.

This is UK Punk on tape. Its incendiary. It’s a taste of things to come for a band who have only showed us a glimpse of their potential with this EP. It’s the kind of tape that in years to come will make people drool on Discogs, so buy now before I change my mind and set them all on fire cos sometimes I can be punk too.

As anyone with even a passing interest in me knows, my favourite film of all time is the 80s B-Movie ‘Night of the Comet’. Not only is it the blueprint for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also everything I’ve ever done in my life. So when I got the opportunity to go to the “cinema” where final girl ‘Reggie’ works in the film (played by the criminally underrated Catherine Mary Stewart), I jumped at the chance. The venue was the El Rey, on Wiltshire in LA and as the taxi pulled up to that iconic entrance (where Reggie got locked out!) I nodded at the driver like he had just delivered me to Valhalla. “Look Tom…” I said to my friend Tom because that’s his name, “THAT is where Reggie got the high score in Tempest, they should have kept the machine here, it would have been better…” and “I guess the projection room where Reggie and her loser boyfriend stayed in overnight that protected them from the comet’s destruction is up those stairs on the left.. do you think we can see it?”. Tom shook his head no and downed his pint to block me out, for we weren’t there to satiate my desire to act out the first 10 minutes of Night of the Comet (though I tried), we were there to see one of our favourite bands play. That band is Islands and today POST/POP is releasing not one, but TWO new albums for them! ‘Taste’ and ‘Shall I Remain Here At Sea’ are the albums in question and both have all of the elements that have made me stick with Islands over the last decade or so.

You can listen to them both here, and I suggest you do because they will make your ears awesome:

This is the first double cassette album from POST/POP, mostly because the infrastructure currently doesn’t exist to manufacture double cassette boxes in quantity. I’m not talking about those 90s “rave” style DVD clamshell style double cassette boxes, I’m talking the classic butterfly double cassette boxes that open either side. Finding these in the UK is impossible so we had to actually make them! There is also the challenge of making a reverse j-card to fit in the second slot (sorry to get all “inside-tape labels” but people have asked questions!) and that was new to me too.

Both albums represent exactly what POST/POP is about. Innovative, catchy as hell and perfectly suited to a colourful rectangle of plastic. If you’ve already listened to this, you’ll want to buy the tape and as it’s in very limited quantities, don’t hesitate! I’m not sure when I’m going to do another double tape ( and for a band as great as Islands!) so buy by clicking on the shop link at the top, or that photo of HETTIE on the right, or even at the below link:

As I left the El Rey gig, all those years ago, Islands had led the entire crowd outside the venue to continue the gig on the pavement (sidewalk for the americans out there!) and let off some fireworks at close range to my face. It left me with an image burned into my retinas (it could have been a sparkler) that this band would always be a part of my musical lexicon and I am more than proud to be releasing this double cassette on POST/POP.

Some people apparently start revolutions from their beds. I, in times gone by, have built space station forts from pillows and duvets and imagination. Charlotte Lindèn Ercoli Coe aka Charles has created an awesome album of considerable dream-pop classics that not only perfectly suit our format of choice – Cassettes! In case you weren’t listening – but feels like it was made for it. Now I’m not saying producing ‘That’s What Baby Learns’ from the comfort of some wood and linen is any more of an achievement than my pillow space fort, but it’s probably a lot easier to drop into everyday conversation.

As you have become accustomed, and before I wax on about this gem of an album, have a little listen and come back when you’re convinced:

Effing great huh? It’s the kind of album I can sit back and close my eyes and let it wash over me with it’s dreamy layered super pop. It also feels like reading someone’s diary (specifically Charlotte’s!) but a diary written with Ariel Pink stationery (why isnt there Ariel Pink stationery?). It’s getting some good hype at the moment and you can read one such review over at Gorilla vs Bear.

Charlotte is playing with POST/POP favourite, Neon Indian on Feb 24th (tomorrow, day of release!) so if you are in Hollywood and have a ticket to the show, you can buy this tape from the lady herself, or from POST/POP using any of the links that points to “SHOP” on this site.

I can’t recommend CHARLES enough, but I am incredibly biased as I am trying to get you to listen/buy so don’t tale my word for it, check her out in these other places too and make your own mind up!